Eight ways LEGO surprised us in 2023 (2024)

From a missing wave of LEGO models to possibly the most satisfying conclusion to a series of sets in recent memory, here are eight ways the LEGO Group surprised us in 2023…

For all the ways that the LEGO Group has proved predictable in its actions this year – from the almost-inevitable large-scale Avengers Tower that looks exactly how you’d imagine, to a rebooted DC theme focusing entirely on Batman and Joker – it’s still retained its ability to surprise. That’s through its particular approach to specific sets, as well as its more holistic approach to entire waves and even themes.

As part of our deep dive into the past 12 months, which also includes revealing our top 10 sets and top 20 minifigures of 2023, here’s a reminder of some of the biggest ways the LEGO Group managed to surprise us this year…

8 – Bringing back LEGO The Lord of the Rings

It wasn’t just that the LEGO Group brought back LEGO The Lord of the Rings in 2023 that surprised us, because Amazon’s Rings of Power series had already given the company the catalyst to do so. What really surprised us about 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell washowthe LEGO Group returned to Middle-earth. The original theme had materialised mostly as affordable playsets, with a single direct-to-consumer set sprinkled on top for good measure.

This time around, the LEGO Group concentrated all its efforts on a single model: a sprawling, beautiful and incredibly-designed ode to Tolkien’s world and characters, as brought to life by Peter Jackson and co, across one of the biggest LEGO sets of all time. Released under the LEGO Icons banner rather than as its own separate The Lord of the Rings theme, the particular execution here also appears to cement a new path for the LEGO Group to explore franchises that can’t quite justify a full product line.

7 – Launching DREAMZzz without an app

After the muted response to NEXO KNIGHTS’ app, and then Hidden Side’s app, the LEGO Group spun its big idea wheel again in 2021 and watched as the needle slowly but surely ticked round to… ‘an app-based theme’. That’s presumably how we ended up with LEGO VIDIYO, which to the surprise of nobody was prematurely shelved in 2022.

Quelle surprise, then, when the company’s latest big bang theme launched this summer sans app. The LEGO Group has gone back to its roots for DREAMZzz, pivoting away from digital experiences and prioritising creativity. (Most DREAMZzz sets can be built in more than one way with instructions supplied in the box.) If anything, the theme most closely resembles the trajectory of NINJAGO, thanks to its accompanying TV show. Will it reach the same success? Unlikely, but you never know…

6 –Playing the long game with the latest LEGO Hogwarts

For many LEGO Harry Potter fans, 2021 brought us the wrong kind of surprise: the LEGO Group had abandoned the modular Hogwarts system devised in 2018, replacing it with a dollhouse-style approach to mark the theme’s 20th anniversary. These newer models were much easier to mix and match across different layouts thanks to their boxy approach, but they never seemed to look much like the Hogwarts we know and love.

Until summer 2023, that is. 76415 The Battle of Hogwarts is the first time the LEGO Harry Potter theme has explicitly broached the climactic battle between the boy wizard and Voldemort in the Deathly Hallows, which was surprising enough in itself, but the real twist came when the LEGO Group published images of that set combined with the rest of the range. The penny dropped, and the three-year vision was complete: this does actually look like Hogwarts through and through.

Kudos to the LEGO Group for executing a long-term plan with magical results.

5 – Getting weird and wild with LEGO Star Wars

“LEGO Star Wars is in danger of growing stale. I’m taking it to strange new places.” This is presumably the boardroom conversation that led to the September and October 2023 wave of LEGO Star Wars sets, which not only revisited one of the most sought-after ships in recent memory in , but also dared to try new things – not always easy in a theme approaching its 25th anniversary.

It was really for better or worse, too, because for every huge new prequel UCS set there was an utterly bizarre giant buildable Wookiee. But the underlying strategy of getting weird and wild with LEGO Star Wars shouldn’t be underestimated (nor underappreciated), not least because it gifted us the most colourful wave of sets from a galaxy far, far away in years.

Pretty much every model in that range, from the wildly obscure 75354 Coruscant Guard Gunship to the overwhelmingly large 75367 Venator-Class Republic Attack Cruiser, had the capacity to surprise. That’s one better than the Ahsoka TV series from which it partly took inspiration, then.

4 – Giving us a modular-shaped Xmas present

Ever since 2014’s 10243 Parisian Restaurant, each new entry in the Modular Buildings Collection has bowed on January 1, giving the masses cause to power through their hangovers and ring in the new year with a trip to the LEGO Store. It’s become something of a rite of passage for many of us. But this year – to everyone’s surprise – the LEGO Group decided to flip the script.

Not with 10312 Jazz Club, which arrived on January 1 as expected, but with 10326 Natural History Museum. 2024’s modular building is actually available right now, having debuted on December 1. The specific reasons for the shift in release date will likely forever remain a mystery, but we can perhaps consider it an early Christmas gift from the LEGO Group. One we still have to pay £260 for, but you can’t have everything.

3 – Going underground with Gringotts Bank

That the LEGO Harry Potter team finally conjured up a Gringotts-shaped addition to 2020’s 75978 Diagon Alley is only really surprising in that it took this long. But the real shock factor for 76417 Gringotts Wizarding Bank Collectors’ Edition was in exactly how the design team approached this esteemed location: rather than just building the gleaming white bank above the surface, Justin Ramsden and George Gilliatt went below ground to deliver the theme’s most stunning display piece yet.

Few Wizarding World fans could have anticipated the extent to which Gringotts would take advantage of its unique setting, delivering a spiralling slice of its underground vaults on which the bank can sit. Toss in a Ukrainian Ironbelly dragon, characters from both the Philosopher’s Stone and the Deathly Hallows, and one of this year’s best gifts-with-purchase, and you’ve got a bigger and better Gringotts than anyone could have imagined.

Call it the year’s biggest surprise set if only for how it subverted all expectations.

2 – Ignoring Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Indiana Jones picked up his whip and fedora for one last merry-go-round in 2023, lighting up cinema screens in the divisive Dial of Destiny. Two months earlier, the LEGO Group celebrated the adventurer’s silver-screen renaissance by resurrecting its own LEGO Indiana Jones theme, starting with an initial wave of three (previously four) sets that revisited scenes from the original trilogy (and builds from the 2008 theme).

All this seemed certain to prelude a full wave of LEGO Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny sets, because otherwise what was the point? Rumours even swirled that product numbers had been earmarked for just such a range. But they never materialised as expected, and Indy’s fifth big-screen outing came and went with not so much as a cursory nod from the LEGO Group. Why? Your guess is as good as ours.

1 – Going so big with LEGO Fortnite

We knew the LEGO Group and Epic Games had big plans together. You don’t invest $1bn without wanting something to show for it. But we never knew LEGO Fortnite would go quite this hard: the brand new game mode only dropped last week, is already breaking records for the free-to-play title, and is apparently just the start of much more to come.

It’s also not just a surface-level collaboration between the two powerhouse brands, instead offering a genuinely deep and involved gameplay experience in which most players are only just beginning to scratch the surface of what’s possible. With more than 1,200 LEGO skins on the table (300 so far, 900 to come) and future game modes to explore, LEGO Fortnite feels like a genuine competitor for Minecraft. And that’s the biggest-selling video game of all time.

Who could have predicted that?

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